My favourite orthodontic social media sites.

Several people have asked me what social media sites I use to obtain and circulate information. So, I thought that I should put together a short list.

I use social media a lot in obtaining information for this blog. I also use it for updating people on when I post. As a result, I have probably spent an unhealthy amount of time using social media. Recently, the British Orthodontic Society have said that I have a surprising amount of knowledge on social media and computing for my age!

I have come across many orthodontic and research sites. Some of these are excellent, some very poor and some just weird. This is a simple list of the main sites that I have come across, and I hope that you find it useful.

Orthodontic Blogs

There are not many “stand-alone” orthodontic blogs. Most are associated with individual practices or offices. Others are run by companies. These are the three that I tend to follow, and they are all interesting.

This is an excellent blog that is run by staff at the University of North Carolina. They provide updates on recent papers. They also have an exciting series of posts called “think pieces”. These are invited posts and address areas of orthodontics that are controversial. Bill Proffit used to make a regular contribution to this blog.

I have recently come across this blog. The author is Gustavo Gameiro from Brazil. The posts are mostly about biomechanics and his general thoughts. I think that this is an interesting small blog that is well worth a read.

An excellent blog that is part of a larger website. This is written by Greg Jorgensen from the USA. He provides useful information to patients about many aspects of orthodontic treatment. I came across this in google searches for blogs, and it always appears in the top most popular blogs.

Facebook

This is, of course, a confusing collection of orthodontists, orthodontic groups and societies. I regularly use these for keeping up to date with developments and publicising my posts. I have put these in no particular order.

This is a useful USA based group. Their main aim is to share orthodontic clinical tips and tricks. But there are also posts on recent research, controversial areas and general orthodontic discussions. I really recommend this group.

This is primarily directed at the business side of orthodontics but does carry some interesting clinical information. A recently qualified orthodontist runs this group. Recently, it appears to have become dominated by Key Opinion Leaders, and I cannot help feeling that it has lost its way a little. I queried a conflict of interest of a KOL on this site, and it did not go down well with the moderators.

This is a large group of over 30,000 members. The aim is to encourage discussion on orthodontics, sleep apnea and other issues. It is run by Mike and John Mew who are advocates of orthotropic treatment. On initial viewing, this looks useful, but most of the posts are about the benefits of orthotropics and harm caused by orthodontics. In effect, this is an orthotropic group using the title orthodontics. They also refused to accept a posting of my blog post on sexism because they felt it was not appropriate for their site. They have now stopped approving my blog posts…

This is just what it says. Most of the posts are by Canadian Orthodontists. These are on common clinical problems. There are not a lot of posts, but many of them are interesting and relevant. I like this site.

This is a group that is run by Myofunctional Research. This, primarily, promotes myofunctional treatment and contains many case reports and discussions. It is an excellent illustration of the orthodontic fringe, and I find it interesting to see what some people believe about this treatment.

This one has just been pointed out to me. It is directed at orthodontic trainee level and includes case reports, short updates on the literature and case tips and hints. It looks interesting.

Twitter

Twitter is a simply brilliant way of getting information very quickly. I use this to keep up to date with research and any orthodontic controversies etc. It is very hit and miss because of rapid posting, and I find it more productive if I do not follow many people. These are the main people who I follow

Scientist in the USA. She writes a great blog on statistics and uses this feed to discuss statistics, research method and publicity for her blog. I find this very useful.

I hope that this information is useful to you. Some of the sites are a bit esoteric and not always associated with orthodontics, but I think that they are great and well worth checking from time to time.

Thanks, Kevin for a very informative post.
I will make sure to circulate it among our residents and colleagues.
I appreciate the effort made to look into all those sites and describe them .
Awesome job professor O’Brien.